Legal Counter of Social Media Crimes (Comparative Analyasis Study)

Abstract

This research aims to investigate the patterns and forms of crimes committed through social media, as well as to analyze the impact of such crimes on criminal legislation in the UAE, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia. The researcher used a descriptive analytical approach to study the nature of crimes committed through social media and furthered the analyses with a comparative method to study the legislative regulations of these crimes by comparing the legislations of this study with each other and comparing them with other legislations. The results of the study show that social media applications constitute an ideal environment for crimes against morality, individual privacy, society, and state security. Therefore, social media crimes are considered as a special type of electronic crimes that cause moral or psychological harm/detriment to both individuals and society, or crimes designed to cause an effect that leads to committing an illegal act. The results also show that there is a difference between real and virtual reality crimes in term of detriments on individuals, society, and state security as a consequence to the change of human behaviour while entering the virtual world of social media. This evolution in crimes is further analysed in this study, and the study explores the possibilities to eventually reduce the gap between ethical and legal penalties in legal systems.